A Book of Lives Read online

  Observatory if that’s what it is, Callanish

  Will do, and empty your mind of everything

  But Callanish, and then give Callanish

  The kick, it takes at least a day and a night

  For strongest ancient markers to dissolve

  With all their people, artefacts, lastly all power

  If you believe me, as I think you should –

  And there is no word for what is left –

  Imagine an eternity of this –

  You, childless woman who wants to remain so,

  You are frowning in this tawdry restaurant

  And I do not know your beliefs, if any,

  But I outstare you with my unspoken thought

  That the greatest gift it is possible to make

  Is life itself.

  Gather your things, off

  Into the grimy evening,

  Woman unknown, best so.

  Conversation in Palestine

  – Your learned friends have been asking about you.

  Where have you been and what have you seen?

  – I walk round the lake and I collect people.

  – That is not what I would call promising.

  – Nothing not based on the ordinary will ever succeed.

  – A face floating past the jamb of the door:

  is that ordinary? People talk.

  – My mother, with a candle! She doesn’t sleep.

  Find better evidence than that. She’s ordinary.

  I’m ordinary. I go to the temple,

  ask some very simple questions. They bridle,

  they splutter, they say respect your elders.

  Well, there’s another who’s even younger,

  not being born yet, but once my Wittgenstein

  gets the bit between his teeth, oho,

  or shall we say a simple ordinary poker,

  they might complain indeed: give him a chance

  he’ll change the world, give me a chance I’ll change

  the world, and while I’m at it there’s my mother

  who has already changed the world in having me,

  an ordinary man in Galilee.

  – What is so great about this Winterheim?

  – Wittgenstein.

  – Whatever. What has he done,

  or rather, what will he do, if I believe you?

  – Give away a fortune. Don’t you like that?

  Ferociously honest, a life pared to the bone.

  If you want processions, hierarchies,

  he’s not your man. Swish vestments

  are anathema to my father

  can tell you that, and to me too

  if it comes to it, and I go further:

  white robes disingenuously simple

  are worse than any magisterium’s twinkle.

  Stand under the poplars in the park

  says Wittgenstein, and it will come to you.

  – What will?

  – I have said.

  – The stars will soon be out.

  – I think so: the beam, the blinter, and the blaze.

  Also by Edwin Morgan from Carcanet

  Collected Poems

  Virtual and Other Realities

  A.D. – a trilogy of plays on the life of Jesus

  New Selected Poems

  Cathures

  The Play of Gilgamesh

  Translations

  Edmond de Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

  Jean Racine, Phaedra

  Collected Translations

  Beowulf

  About the Author

  EDWIN MORGAN was born in Glasgow in 1920. He became lecturer in English at the University of Glasgow, from which he retired as Professor in 1980. He was appointed Poet Laureate of Glasgow in 1999, and received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2000. In June 2001 he received the Weidenfeld Prize for Translation for Phaedra. In 2004 Edwin Morgan was appointed Scotland’s Makar, or Poet Laureate.

  Copyright

  First published in 2007

  by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ

  This ebook edition first published in 2011

  All rights reserved

  © Edwin Morgan 2007, © the Estate of Edwin Morgan 2011

  The right of Edwin Morgan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  Epub ISBN 978–1–84777–823–9

  Mobi ISBN 978–1–84777–824–6